retire from full service, since which time, although never giving up his relation to the church as an ordained minister, he has in the main become allied to the life of a layman, and a citizen. In the former he has been active in Sabbath-school and other Christian work; and in the latter he has taken a share of civil burdens, and has held various public offices, always taking a lively interest in the great moral questions of the hour.
In 1843 he was a delegate of the Edgartown Anti-Slavery Society, to a meeting of some twenty or thirty gentlemen at the office of a Mr. Channing, in Boston, whence, with the mammoth Latimer petition, signed by George Latimer (who had been arrested as a fugitive slave, and whose freedom had been purchased by citizens of Boston) and 62,791 others, they threaded several streets, under a light snow, to the state-house, where, being admitted in a body to the House of Representatives, the petition was presented by Charles Francis Adams, then a member. This resulted in the passage of the famous "personal liberty bill" of the same year.
He still resides in Edgartown, where he has been active in the cause of education, having been a member of the school board and president of the county educational association for many years; and also, though not a farmer technically, yet a promoter and co-operator of agricultural interests, having been president of the county agricultural society, and six years its delegate to the state board of agriculture. He was the originator of the idea of "farmers' institutes," which are now held so extensively, and with such marked results, by the agricultural societies in the different counties of the Commonwealth.
From its inception he was connected with the camp-meeting at Wesleyan Grove —many of the years officially—which religious gathering was the germ, and became the nucleus, of Cottage City. His written reports for a long series of years had much to do in spreading its fame and attracting people to the place, all tending to the building up of Cottage City as a great summer resort; and he is now the only survivor of the company of men who fixed upon this place for that meeting.
He has held the office of register of probate for Dukes county since 1852, with the exception of about two years, at first as an appointee of the governor, and then, under a change of the law, by successive elections (in all thirty-five years); and also that of register of the insolvency court since its organization in 1858. Outside of official work his pen has also been a busy one.
Mr. Vincent was married in Edgartown, October 14, 1832, to Lydia Russell, daughter of Holmes and Lydia (Russell) Coffin. Of this union were two children: Rebecca Coffin and Fannie Allen Vincent.
Vinton, Frederic Porter, son of William Henry and Sarah Ward (Goodhue) Vinton, was born in Bangor, Penobscot county, Maine, in 1846.
He was educated in the public schools of Bangor and of Chicago, Ill., subsequently taking a course of instruction in a commercial college in Boston.
He began his city life with Gardner Brewer & Co., 1861. From 1862 to '65 he was with C. F. Hovey & Co.; from 1865 to '70 he was in the National Bank of Redemption, and from 1870 to '75 he was book-keeper of the Massachusetts National Bank. He began the study of art in Paris, in October, 1875, under the guidance and in the school of Bonnat. Since 1879 up to the present time Mr. Vinton has given his attention to portraiture, and has his studio in the city of Boston.
He was married June 27, 1883, to Annie Mary, daughter of George and Mary Preston (Bates) Peirce of Newport, R. I.
Mr. Vinton was made an associate of the National Academy of Design, New York, 1880, and has been a member of the Society of American Artists, New York, since 1881. He is a member of the Tavern, Papyrus, and St. Botolph clubs, being one of the executive committee of the latter.
Mr. Vinton was for one year a pupil under M. Jean Paul Laurens, Paris, 1877–'78, and was an exhibiter in the Paris Salon, 1878. A few of his best-known portraits are those of Wendell Phillips—from life —1881, the last portrait for which he sat; Judge Otis P. Lord, now in Salem; Judge George F. Choate, Salem; Prof. A. P. Peabody, D. D., Cambridge; General Charles Devens, in the department of justice, Washington, D. C.; Hon. George F. Hoar, in the Worcester law library; William Warren, actor, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Francis Parkman, in the St. Botolph Club; Hon. Charles Francis Adams (senior); Sir Lyon Playfair and Dr. Henry J. Bigelow. A copy of the portrait of Wendell Phillips was ordered by the city authorities of Boston, and now hangs in the historic gallery of Faneuil Hall.
